I spent over a decade building CCAW. The journey was pretty crazy—filled with extreme highs and lows. I didn’t realize the value in taking time away. I worked five years straight before taking a one-week vacation and around eight or nine years before taking a two-week one. It took people close to me encouraging me to take time off and feeling mentally and physically exhausted.

On vacation, I didn’t look at work unless it was an absolute emergency. I made sure to communicate this to the team to set expectations.

I hadn’t realized how wound up I was. Time away brought this into focus. I worked out regularly, so I had a physical release, but this was mental. It took me longer than it should have to relax and enjoy my downtime. Working on something intensely for so long had slowly changed my mental state and I hadn’t realized it. Time away let me reset mentally and relax.

It’s common knowledge in my entrepreneurial circles that sleep is a challenge. A fair number of us don’t sleep soundly because our minds are racing. Waking in the middle of the night becomes the norm. We learn to function on suboptimal sleep. I slept much better on vacation, recharging mentally and physically.

I come up with many of my best ideas and solutions to nagging problems when I’m away from the business (like some people say they do in the shower!). I’ll be thinking about something else and an idea will pop into my head. I jot it down so I won’t keep thinking about it. Over the years I’ve noticed that when I get things out of my head, my subconscious mind uses the bandwidth in creative ways.

My experiences with time away are probably extreme, but I share them so others can learn from them. You may think there’s no good time to be away from your business, but sometimes that’s exactly what you and the business need.

I hope everyone enjoyed their downtime this holiday weekend!

When I’m passionate about an idea, my mind races. I think of ways to maximize the potential I see. I visualize the idea as a success. I’m mentally at the finish line before I’ve even started running the race. I see how it can add value to customers’ lives, how it will run, how many people are needed, what those people will do, and on and on. Then I have to tell myself, whoa. It takes time to get to the finish line. The idea will get there, but not on day one. When it does, it might not look exactly like my vision.

When an idea has great potential, I want it to be realized immediately. Unfortunately, things don’t work that way. After a decade-plus as an entrepreneur, I still have to remind myself of that. It takes time to learn what your customers want, develop what they’ll actually pay for, build a team, and work through the unexpected kinks.

Most worthwhile businesses didn’t start off anywhere close to where they ended up. Netflix began by shipping DVDs. Now it has a huge digital content library and creates original movies and shows—all delivered digitally over the internet. Amazon started off selling and shipping books. Now it creates movies and TV shows, owns a grocery store, and sells computing power to companies of all sizes. Oh . . . and it’ll sell you anything you can think of and deliver it in two days. Facebook got its start connecting college students over the internet. No one had any idea how or when it would make money. Now it generates $70 billion in annual advertising revenue, runs a social network that connects the world, helps people share images via Instagram, and offers free cross-border mobile communication via WhatsApp. These are extreme examples, but you get my point.

Greatness doesn’t materialize on day one. It develops over time and the journey is a valuable part of the process. Things that weren’t obvious at the outset are discovered along the way and help inform where you end up.

The next time you’re excited about a great idea with lots of potential, savor the feeling and look forward to the ride!

Today I had a conversation about change. Sarah is experiencing significant change, like everyone, as a result of COVID-19. She’s feeling a lot of angst. She wanted to know how I’m dealing with virus-related changes and what I’ve learned from navigating change over a decade as an entrepreneur.

The first thing I noticed is that Sarah rejects change. She fights it if she didn’t initiate it. She will change eventually, but only after the pain of not doing so is unbearable. But change can be caused by something out of our control (like a pandemic). Fighting against something you can’t control wastes time and energy. The world doesn’t care what we think. We can either accept change and get on with things or struggle against it and endure anxiety, or worse. Regardless, the change keeps happening.

I also noticed that Sarah sees most change as an obstacle. That’s her perspective, for whatever reason, and it affects how she copes. It would help her to realize that while change is inconvenient, it opens up new possibilities. Thinking about them instead of dwelling on present discomfort can illuminate opportunity.

I view change as inevitable. The world is constantly evolving. That has always been true and it may be the only thing that will never change. With that perspective, I try to embrace most change. Doing so has allowed me to take advantage of some great opportunities and spared me avoidable stress.

The next time you experience change (now, maybe?), consider accepting it and focusing on the opportunities it presents.

One thing I didn’t do well early in my career was recognize greatness quickly. Someone close to me had to point it out (much later, typically). People . . . opportunities . . . accomplishments—it didn’t matter. For whatever reason, I wouldn’t see it as soon as other people did. And when I did, sometimes it was too late.

During my journey building CCAW, I realized that I didn’t recognize greatness quickly. I didn’t like this about myself and decided to change it. My knowledge gap was my first issue. I tackled it by reading widely in areas I deemed important personally and professionally. This gave me a baseline. When something was superior to that baseline, I could readily identify its greatness. My personality was another obstacle. I tend to be laid back and have blind spots when it comes to people. I can’t change how I’m wired, so this was more challenging to solve. I learned to ask the opinions of colleagues or friends who deeply understand people when I encountered someone I wasn’t sure about. Their observations helped me recognize when the person was great. Not the most scientific approach, but it works for me.

Not being able to recognize greatness hindered me in a few ways. It slowed my decision making, so I missed out on some great opportunities. And I didn’t allocate the appropriate time and resources to great people and opportunities.

Times change. Today I had a conversation with a buddy about an investment I made that has done well. He asked how I knew the company would succeed before other people did. I told him that I quickly recognized its uniqueness because I’ve seen lots of companies in the space and done lots of reading about the space. This company’s performance was rare when I baselined it against what I usually see. I believed this company was great and invested in it confidently.

Some opportunities really do come along only once in a lifetime. Learning to know them when you seem them can be life changing!

I chat with rising entrepreneurs regularly. Some have nothing but an idea. Some have built an MVP and are fine-tuning it based on customer feedback. Almost none of them have validated that customers are willing to open their wallets and pay for their product or service. Translation: they don’t have product–market fit.

These founders usually ask me about raising money from investors. A few hundred thousand is what I usually hear. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with raising money. Progress requires capital. Building an MVP and modifying it based on customer feedback takes time and energy, which requires people. People don’t work for free. Customer revenue this early in a company’s life cycle is minimal. This means founders need capital from other sources, such as investors.

I usually ask these rising entrepreneurs a few things:

• Do you have a working product or service?
• How many paying customers do you have?
• How do you plan on spending investors’ money?

These questions usually spark a good conversation. My objective is to get them to focus on their goal and see if raising money aligns with that goal.

Raising investor capital is important, but early-stage founders should focus on developing a product or service that customers are willing to pay for. Investor capital should be viewed as a tool to help them reach their goal, not the goal.

Today I had a great conversation with a local venture capitalist. We mainly discussed opportunities to improve the Atlanta startup ecosystem. The subject of accelerators came up. Atlanta has a few accelerators that play an important role. They provide education, mentorship, and introductions that help fill entrepreneurs’ gaps (in knowledge, relationships, and capital). They also foster community and camaraderie by connecting entrepreneurs who otherwise wouldn’t know each other. Working in close proximity to peers in co-working spaces is a big part of the accelerator playbook.

The venture capitalist pointed out that accelerators as we know them have an uncertain future, which could affect the ecosystem. Working in close proximity now is risky because of COVID-19. If that risk isn’t eliminated, what will that mean for accelerators? Virtual communication is a good alternative, but it doesn’t give entrepreneurs the chance to build the bonds that develop when you’re working side by side. Other serendipitous interactions are also limited. If accelerators can’t operate in dense spaces, their ability to accelerate entrepreneurs’ success will be limited. If fewer entrepreneurs are successful, the momentum of the overall ecosystem could slow.

I’d thought about this before but hearing it from a venture capitalist highlighted the importance of accelerators. I don’t have an answer to this problem, but I’m starting to think about it more. How do you accelerate entrepreneurs’ success if physical interaction is limited and the accelerator model is less effective? How can you fill their knowledge, relationship, and capital gaps?

Like I said, I don’t know the answer to these questions. But I’d love to hear other people’s ideas about them.

Years ago I read a post by Steve Blank that stuck with me. Steve is a serial entrepreneur, author, and professor at Stanford, Berkeley, and other schools. He’s a very credible person when it comes to entrepreneurship. Today I thought about the post and read it again. It’s titled Epitaph for an Entrepreneur, and it reflects on his entrepreneurial journey. In it, he shares things he learned about balancing his personal and professional lives.

One thing I took away from it was Steve’s evolution from a philosophy of “live to work” to one of “work to live.” I can relate. When I started CCAW, I went all in. I worked lots of hours and didn’t have much time for anything else. It was success or bust. Work was my life. Well, CCAW was successful and now I’ve entered a new phase. Not quite the same as Steve’s, though. Now, I work to help others be successful. My hope is that they will do the same when they can, creating a flywheel of sorts over time. I also work to enjoy experiences and time with people I care about. Tomorrow isn’t promised, so we have to make the most of today. I guess I work to live now—or at least I’m moving toward it.

Steve’s post is insightful and thought-provoking. It shows how the entrepreneurial journey (and life for that matter) evolves over time.

This life isn’t practice for the next one. Steve decided that he would prefer his epitaph to say, “He was a great father” rather than “He never missed a meeting.” What will your epitaph say?

I recently spoke with a friend who happens to be an entrepreneur. One of his businesses is in commercial real estate. We talked about my journey with CCAW and how my real estate needs evolved. When I started CCAW, it was a small desk in the corner of my apartment. I worked from home for about three years. When I expanded the team, I sublet space from a much larger company for a few years. Next we moved to coworking space at Atlanta Tech Village.

My friend thought about all the rent I’d paid over the years and couldn’t understand why I hadn’t bought a building. In fact, I considered purchasing a commercial space and drove around many times looking for the perfect place. Each time I decided against pulling the trigger. Here’s some my reasoning:

• Community – We had a very small team, so creating a sense of community was difficult. Subleased and coworking space provided instant community, which was a huge plus in recruiting. Learning events, socials, friend groups, etc. boosted team morale. People liked coming to work.
• Flexibility – I couldn’t predict the future. Being in a space that could accommodate change was appealing. We grew and contracted many times over the years. Not owning space helped minimize the stress of those periods.
• Location – I couldn’t afford a building in a nice part of town. Subleasing and coworking allowed CCAW to be located in a desirable, walkable area. This was a huge plus during recruiting and visits from vendors.
• Amenities – Being in a space used by many companies allowed for amenities we could never have afforded if I had bought a building. A gym, a rooftop deck: density made them possible.
• Facilities – We didn’t have to worry about maintenance or upkeep because building management handled everything. Owning a space would have introduced a set of issues that I wasn’t interested in.
• Serendipity – Working alongside other companies made regular chance encounters possible. This may seem insignificant, but some of our luckiest breaks came from those encounters. Owning would have eliminated any chance of such luck.
• Founder relationships – I built solid relationships with other founders who worked in the same space, often through random interactions. Over the years, these relationships have helped me navigate challenging times and have turned into friendships. Owning would have made this many times more difficult.

Could I have paid a lot less per square foot by owning? Yup. Could I have built equity in a real estate asset? Absolutely. Looking back, do I wish I’d bought? Not a chance.

My criteria weren’t based on cost. They were based on value. I regularly asked myself if the value CCAW received from not owning exceeded the cost. The answer was always yes. In the end, the way most things are priced ensures that you get what you pay for.

Next time you’re considering a purchase, ask yourself if the value will exceed the cost.

I tend to be a fact-driven independent thinker. I enjoy hearing different perspectives, though, and I’m happy to be persuaded by sound logic. Today I had two great conversations about group decisions that got me thinking. How do you get the best decisions from a group?

Groups of credible people are powerful. They can make great decisions. Each person brings a perspective shaped by their unique experiences. When they share it, everyone else glimpses the world through their lens. Incorporating the views of disparate people produces a better, more comprehensive decision. Will it be a perfect decision? No. Will it be stronger and more cohesive? Absolutely!

I’ve often found that it’s difficult to get every member of a group to speak up. A confident, perhaps dominant, person who shares their opinion early on can sway others too easily and discourage them from sharing their thoughts. Groupthink is the result, and it’s not a good thing. If everyone rallies behind a single perspective instead of discussing different ways of looking at the problem, the result is a consensus decision that is weak.

I’ve read lots about this and I believe consensus decisions can be dangerous. One of the conversations I had today affirmed this. The lack of a contrarian perspective in a group is a warning sign. If everyone sees the issue the same way, the group may be overlooking something material. If they are, the decision they settle on will be flawed and probably wrong.

The next time you’re working in a group and you have a different opinion than others do, let it be heard (respectfully and collaboratively). Even if the group doesn’t agree with you, you’re adding value. You never know—your contrarian view could be the difference between a disastrous decision rooted in groupthink and an amazing one!

This past week I talked with two founders. Both of them have wildly successful companies that are still growing. But they told me they’re reducing head count. For most companies, the customer landscape has changed—but for these companies, not so much. They’re still growing at a healthy clip (just not as fast as they were). Even so, I wasn’t surprised. Their need to get leaner is rooted in decisions made during a period of rapid expansion.

Both founders have hired aggressively over the last few years as they’ve grown rapidly. In that scenario, roles can be created without anyone knowing whether they’re needed. I’ve seen companies hire someone to do manual tasks that custom software could handle. The person responsible for the department doesn’t have time to delve into what each person is doing or how they’re doing it. They just know their team is maxed out because of the company’s growth, so they go to HR and ask to add more people. And even if they knew that software could help them, it probably wouldn’t get built. Engineering teams are focused on customer-facing work to increase revenue—new product features, bug-fixing, etc. They don’t have time to consider projects that would make internal teams’ lives easier.

Quality can slip, too. Instead of hiring an A player in a two-month recruiting process, you add a B player because you have just thirty days to fill the role. Over time, the quality of your team falls, which has all kinds of ramifications down the road.

One day you look up and see people who aren’t fully utilized . . . employees without a clearly defined role . . . team members who aren’t carrying their weight.

Both of these entrepreneurs see staff reductions as a way to address these issues. In my opinion, they’re able to consider layoffs because their focus has changed. They know it’s easier to keep a customer than find a new one (especially in this environment). They want to better serve their current customers in order to reduce churn. At this moment, efficiency, not growth, is the goal.

Business is cyclical, and I suspect that despite the pandemic, what’s happening with these companies is part of the normal business cycle.